Lately I find myself doing a daily night walk around the place I live. The warm night with cold breeze of tropic climates hits you in the face, and the night sky surrounds you with incredible views. Look up and take a moment to appreciate the combinations night does to dark colors, especially with a moonlight contrast. Lately it has been cloudy at night, so sometimes you only get to appreciate just the clouds.
Looking at the red to dark-blue gradients that clouds show at night, with their back covered by the dark sky and having the little moon shining away, its too hard not wanting to share the full picture with everybody. I now share this with you.
Night Sky of March 30th
There I stood, looking at the clouds as they carve an opening so the moon can cast its light upon the surface. I stopped, gave it a longer look and then, as soon as I got back home I opened a pixelcanvas and started portraying the image. Here it is.
I NOW HAVE THE TOOLS!
Thanks to Steemit platform I bought Aseprite, a Pixelart graphic based program. Everybody knows what this little gem is capable of already, but I'm so happy with this that I'll share with you some weird example files that I prepared to showcase the best features that I like most about this program:
- Messy dithering made easier:
Of course, dithering is a technique that lets you convey different type of effects with limited colors, like a smooth color gradient with just 2 colors or a way to convey texture to a plain surface, its so useful! However, being so easy to get it wrong it has to be performed with care.
With this simple tool, you can distort borders to create a quick messy effect that blends any color. After a quick brush with it make sure to remove any stray pixels that are left over the image.
- Normal dithering made easier:
If you're expert with dithering, this just lets you make any pattern you wish.
- Rotation algorithyms:
Rotating pixel art is a crime, it mutilates the poor image! However, doing so eases some sprite animating process, now, with this you can rotate any selection using a different algorithm and you can keep most of the details.
- PALETTE PRESETS!:
YES! I’m so happy about this one, they give you a ton of different popular color palettes that you can try out or you can just make your own (Notice that this is not an automatic recolor of the image, you shift the palettes but you still have to color again your work).
About the Artwork
Of course, I took advantage of the new instruments to develop this. I even use the frame animation structure to keep track of different versions of the image. Back then, I had to save multiple files of any work and take multiple pictures of the process and put them together with GraphicsGale.
Thanks for Watching!
Special Thanks to:
- My friends and their feedback.
- DawnBringer for his excelent 32 Color Palette.
- And the night sky for being such a wonder.
You can find my other works on my tumblr account, here!